‘Jurassic World’ sequel has much more on its mind than just dinosaur mayhem

It was a foregone conclusion that Jurassic World — one of the highest-grossing movies of all time — would get its own sequel at some point down the road, but details have been relatively scarce regarding the narrative direction the follow-up to director Colin Trevorrow’s film will take.

When the sequel was officially announced last year, Trevorrow hinted that it will be about more than just dinosaurs chasing people on an island. Now, in a recent interview, Trevorrow — who’s serving as a producer on the film and not the director — offered a few more details about the intended theme of the 2018 movie.

“The dinosaurs will be a parable of the treatment animals receive today: the abuse, medical experimentation, pets, having wild animals in zoos like prisons, the use the military has made of them, animals as weapons,” Trevorrow said of the film in an interview with Spanish-language news outlet El Mundo (as reported by Time).

Set to be directed by Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona, the still-untitled Jurassic World sequel will reportedly be “a very different movie that will explore new paths,” according to Trevorrow.

Last year, after the sequel was confirmed and speculation had begun running rampant about where the reinvigorated franchise would go from that point, Trevorrow offered the first indication of the “new path” that Universal Pictures and the series’ creative team envisioned for the franchise.

“[It will not be] just a bunch of dinosaurs chasing people on an island,” Trevorrow told Wired UK back in July 2015. “I feel like the idea that this isn’t always going to be limited to theme parks, and there are applications for this science that reach far beyond entertainment. And when you look back at nuclear power and how that started, the first instinct was to weaponize it and later on we found it could be used for energy.”

“A seed that I wanted to plant in this movie, that might be able to grow in more of these movies if they decide to make more of them, is: What if this went open source? It’s almost like InGen is Mac, but what if PC gets their hands on it? What if there are 15 different entities around the world who can make a dinosaur?” he elaborated.

The Jurassic World sequel is scheduled to hit theaters June 22, 2018.